To show you this page, we placed cookies on your computer. If you continue on this website, we will use further cookies to maximise your experience and help us to understand how we can improve it. Learn more

PPI – your case with us…

what's happening?

Seven out of every ten complaints that people refer to us at the ombudsman are about payment protection insurance (PPI). And with a thousand new cases still arriving every working day, this is our biggest job ever.

With this volume of complaints, it’s probably going to take us years, not months, to sort out all the issues involved. This is why we have significantly scaled up our operation.

So for customers who have a complaint about PPI – or who are just wondering how we’re tackling this issue – here’s some information that should help.

With an estimated £50 billion worth of PPI policies sold over the last ten to fifteen years – by hundreds of different financial businesses – millions of people have already complained about PPI mis-selling. And billions of pounds have already been paid out in compensation.

This is why people are calling this the biggest mis-selling scandal in financial services history. And this is why it’s expected to take years, not months, to sort out all the issues involved.

You don’t need to use a claims manager. They won’t get you a faster or different result. But they will take a significant proportion of any compensation you might get.

You’ll need to give the financial business as much information as you can about your complaint. It might take you a bit of time to remember all the facts – and to find the paperwork. But using the standard PPI questionnaire (Word or PDF version) will make it easier for you to organise and write down the main facts of your case.

Your bank or financial business should respond within 8 weeks. And they should pay you promptly if they owe you any compensation.

If you have your PPI complaint turned down by the financial business – and you don’t agree with the reasons they give you – you can come to the Financial Ombudsman Service for an independent review of your case.

If you’re not happy with how a bank or financial business has looked at your PPI complaint, we can review the case – from an entirely independent standpoint.

We look carefully at both sides of the story and we weigh up all the facts.

If we decide the bank or financial business has treated you fairly – and did not mis-sell your PPI policy – we will explain why. But if we decide that the business acted wrongly, we can order it to put things right.

When we review PPI complaints that financial businesses have already turned down, we uphold around two thirds of them – on average – in favour of the consumer.

We're continuing to receive record numbers of complaints. And a thousand people are still asking us for help with PPI every working day. In total we’ve now had over a million PPI complaints – the largest number of cases we have ever received about a single financial product.

Each of these complaints needs to be reviewed and assessed individually by one of our fully trained and skilled casehandlers. So to work through all the cases – and resolve all the issues – it's going to take significant amount of time.

But we're making good progress. Last year alone we sorted out almost 400,000 PPI complaints for people. That was double the number we resolved in the previous year – as a result of our recruiting 2,000 new adjudicators and 50 new ombudsmen, to help review and decide individual PPI cases.

Worries about PPI have been raised for many years. We expressed concern about the mis-sale of PPI in ombudsman newsissue 4 (April 2001) and again in ombudsman newsissue 50 (November/December 2005). And Citizens Advice raised a formal so-called “super-complaint” to the regulators in 2006.

No one knows for certain how many more people will complain about PPI. This makes it very difficult to forecast the scale of our task in resolving all of these issues. But at current levels, it looks likely that it will take us another few years.

This doesn’t mean that every individual complaint will take that long to resolve. Some might – but we'll be able to sort out other cases in just a few months.

How long your case takes to resolve will depend on a number of things including:

how easy (or difficult) it is to get hold of all the paperwork we need on your case; and

how straightforward the facts of your case are.

Our priority is to give everyone an assessment of their case as soon as possible. Telling you – upfront and honestly – whether or not your case looks like one that we’ll uphold helps many people with their decision on whether it’s worthwhile pursuing the matter further.

This all means we’re unlikely to be able to give you a detailed personal timetable for how long it will take to resolve your case – other than to assure you that we will try and sort it out as fast as we possibly can.

Once you’ve sent us your PPI complaint – and we’ve acknowledged it – you don’t need to do anything else. It’s generally a case of “don’t call us, we’ll call you”. Your complaint is safely with us and we'll be in touch when we've made progress on it.

In fact, the more people call us for an update, the less time we have to sort out the complaints that are already with us.

Of course, if there's a significant change in your circumstances – for example, if you're seriously ill or your address has changed – we want to hear from you. But generally we’ll only get in touch with you if we need more information.

And the more details you can give us when you fill in the standard PPI questionnaire (Word or PDF version), the less likely we’ll need to ask you for more information later on.

You might have seen that PPI has been in the news again. And if you have, then you’ll notice that the reports have focused on some pretty big numbers – from big businesses putting aside lots more money to cover the cost of PPI complaints, to the BBC running a story about the large number of people still turning to our service for help.

Big numbers have always been part of the PPI story – did you know, for example, that we’ve now helped more than one and a half million people with their PPI problems?

But, for us at the Ombudsman Service, it’s just as important to focus on what’s behind all of these numbers – real people with all sorts of things going on in their lives apart from whatever might be happening with their finances. A few weeks ago, when I was thinking about my next update, this service took part in National Customer Service Week. As part of that our people shared some of our customers’ stories – and it really made me think about the difference we can make in people’s lives.

One example that really stood out for me concerned one of our customers who’d been struggling with some stress-related health issues. Of course there are many and varied factors that can impact on someone’s mental health – but it certainly doesn’t help if you’re locked in an seemingly endless dispute about your finances.

We’re an independent and impartial service – we don’t take sides between a consumer and a business when we’re deciding a case. But we do take care to ensure that everyone has the chance to put across their side of the story – and for some people that’s more difficult to do than others.

What really struck me about this case was the care our ombudsman took to make our customer feel listened to and supported – whether that meant helping them find the best way to explain what was going on, or going the extra mile to show not only that we were listening, but also that we understood. After we sorted things out, they sent us a really lovely email telling us that our ombudsman had done more than just help them resolve an issue with their bank – they’d given them the courage and support to talk openly about their condition for the first time. That’s something that can be genuinely life-changing.

Of course, not all the feedback we get from our customers is this positive – and I know there’s more we can do for some of the people who need our help. We want to give a great service to every customer – and that means being ready to do things a bit differently if we can see that someone needs a bit of extra help.

So, if there’s something we should know that might make a difference to the way we deal with your case, or anything we can do to make it easier for you to talk to us – just let us know and we’ll see what we can do to help.

summer updatePPI what’s happening summer update

Richard Thompson’s away on holiday at the moment so I thought I’d step in with an update on the latest news about PPI.

In Richard’s last update he mentioned that we were looking out for the results of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) consultation on the way PPI complaints are handled. And if you’ve been keeping an eye on the news in the last couple of days, you may have seen that the FCA has announced a further period of consultation about the rules they’re thinking of bringing in.

At the moment, the proposals include a two-year time limit for PPI complaints to start running from next summer – meaning that PPI complaints would need to be made to businesses by summer 2019. That seems a long way off at the moment – but it’s surprising how quickly time can fly by. So, if you’re not sure what you need to do to make a complaint, just give us a call. You might also want take a look at our guide on how to complain.

As you’ll know from an earlier update, the FCA are also thinking of bringing in new rules and guidance because of a Supreme Court case – Mrs Plevin against Paragon Personal Finance. The further consultation announced earlier this week sets out a few changes to the original proposals – and the FCA have said that if they decide to go ahead with these changes the new rules could come into force by the end of next March. But at the moment, they’re just proposals.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Plevin case raises lots of complex issues that we need to think about – and the FCA’s finalised set of rules and guidance is one of the things we’ll want to take into account when deciding what’s fair in individual cases. So this does mean some of our customers will be waiting longer than we’d like for a full answer on their complaint. But we’ll keep you updated on any important developments.

In the meantime, if you’re worried about anything you think might affect your case with us, please get in touch. We also regularly update our online resource, so you can find out more about how we’re sorting out PPI complaints.

from Charlie Sweeney, lead ombudsman and director of casework

spring updateready for anything

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen everything from warm sunshine to chilly grey skies – in other words, typical British spring weather. But fortunately, while we can’t always tell what the weather’s going to throw at us next, we can at least try to plan for every eventuality.

It’s a bit like that with our work here at the ombudsman. Over the last year, we’ve had around 3,500 people turn to us for help every week with a PPI complaint. That’s less than we’ve seen in previous years, but the numbers still aren’t going down as quickly as we expected. That’s why we always need to keep an eye on which way the wind is blowing, so we can make sure we’re ready for what lies ahead.

At the moment that means looking out for the results of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) recent consultation on the way PPI complaints are handled. One of the things they’re considering is bringing in a time limit for complaining about mis-sold PPI – and if that happens, it seems likely that we could see an increase in the number of people asking for our help.

The FCA is also considering whether to introduce some new rules and guidance around handling PPI complaints in light of a court case that I mentioned last summer. The Supreme Court’s decision in that case – Mrs Plevin against Paragon Personal Finance – raises a lot of complex issues. Unfortunately, that means some of our customers are waiting for longer than we’d like to get an answer on their complaint. I know that waiting can be very frustrating, but it’s important that we take the time to fully understand what difference the court’s ruling might make to individual cases – so we can give people the fair answers that they need from us.

Of course, if you’ve been reading my updates in recent years, you’ll know that facing up to challenges isn’t a new thing for us at the ombudsman service – especially when it comes to PPI. It’s as important now as it was at the peak of the PPI challenge that we keep looking ahead for the best ways of helping our customers. And we’re making some real progress. I’m really pleased to say that, despite the uncertainty caused by the Supreme Court’s decision, we were still able to sort out over 260,000 PPI cases for our customers last year – that’s 10,000 more than we expected. And we’re planning to resolve another 270,000 PPI complaints by March 2017.

But it’s not just about numbers. As I’ve already mentioned, I know some people are still having to wait too long to have their PPI problems sorted out – especially when the issues involved are a bit more complex than some of the cases we’ve dealt with in the past. But we’re making significant progress. And by the end of this financial year, when someone comes to us for help with a PPI problem, we’re aiming to give them their answer far quicker - with most people getting an answer in a few months.

We don’t know for certain what challenges the next year will bring. But whatever the weather, our commitment is to give everyone that comes to us a fair answer, as quickly as possible. After all, that’s what we’re here for – come rain or shine.

new year updatethe year ahead

As the new year rolls around, many of you will be casting your minds back over the past twelve months – and starting to size-up the year ahead. It’s the same here at the ombudsman service, as we continue to look at ways to provide a service that’s both easy to use and that gives people the help they need when they need it.

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that 2015 was another busy year for the ombudsman service. But we’ve made real progress – sorting out nearly a quarter of a million PPI cases alone. And we’ve continued to work closely with businesses to help them understand how to get things right for their customers first time.

But, in many ways, the challenges we face in 2016 are the same as in previous years – we’re still seeing thousands of people turning to us every week for help with a PPI problem, so many will be waiting longer for an answer than we’d like. But the way we approach these challenges is constantly evolving – as we look at better and faster ways to help people when things go wrong.

The beginning of last year saw the launch of our online complaint form – and that’s proved to be popular with many of our customers. But I know that’s just a small step. 2016 will see us working harder than ever to make sure the ombudsman is in line with what the people who come to us today expect from a modern service – and we can only do that because so many of you are willing to share with us what you think.

That’s why I was really pleased that so many of you got in touch after my last update to say you’d like to come along to one of our backstage tours. It’s a great way for us to meet face-to-face with the people that use our service – and to share thoughts and ideas about how best to get problems sorted. We’ll be arranging a date for the next tour soon – but it’s not too late to get in touch if you’re interested in coming along. Just drop us an email at meettheombudsman@financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

Before I sign off, I know a lot of people will be looking to get their finances in shape for the year ahead. Here at the ombudsman, as well as helping out when things go wrong, we also like to try and help people head-off any potential problems before they happen. That’s why we often post helpful hints and tips on twitter – why not follow us and see for yourself?

Of course, sometimes things do still go wrong – but if they do, just give us a call and we’ll see what we can do to help.

autumn updateat face value

We want to be a service that people feel they can turn to for fair answers, so it’s really important that we keep a close eye on how we’re doing. For a big organisation like us, that usually means lots of surveys and number crunching. But there’s no substitute for actually talking to the people that use our service in person.

A lot of our people get to do that every day, when they talk to our customers over the phone. But it’s also helpful to meet our customers and find out what you think face to face. That’s why, from time to time, we have a few people in for a backstage tour of our offices in London. We don’t discuss the specifics of their complaints but, by sitting down in a relaxed environment and talking through what people think and feel about us, we get a useful insight into what matters to them.

Or if it isn’t easy for you to get to London, why not catch up with us at one our events around the country instead? Next up we’ll be visiting the Bullring Shopping Centre in Birmingham, to meet local people face to face – you’ll find our stall just outside Debenhams from the 22 to the 26 October. We’re always running new events, so keep an eye on our website or the local press for something near you.

Whether you’re a consumer, a business or someone who works in the community, a team of our ombudsman and adjudicators will be on hand to listen to your concerns or complaints – or just to hear what you have to say about the issues that matter to you.

summer updatein the news

PPI has been in the news again over the last few days, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer some of your questions about how the latest stories in the media may affect you and your case.

Over the weekend many papers – including the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday – reported that banks might have to pay out compensation on more PPI complaints because of a decision made by the Supreme Court.

The court case in question was won by a consumer – Mrs Plevin – against Paragon Personal Finance. It centred on whether failing to tell her about the high level of commission she paid with her PPI was “unfair”. We wrote about the case on our website after the Supreme Court made its decision in November 2014.

The Supreme Court case has sparked some debate. A number of commentators have also asked if it could result in the introduction of a time limit for future PPI claims.

Cases that involve legal arguments can often be complicated – and Mrs Plevin’s case is no exception. Relevant court decisions are something we’ve always taken into account when looking at each PPI complaint. So if your case is one where the Supreme Court’s decision might be relevant, we’re already taking that in to account and thinking about whether it will make a difference.

Because of the complex issues raised by the Supreme Court’s decision, it’s likely that it may take longer to resolve things affected by this. But we’ll keep you informed about important developments.

When we look at your complaint, there are many laws, regulations and other factors that can have an impact on how we decide if you’ve been treated unfairly. But the important thing is the decisions we make are based on the individual circumstances. And if we agree that your complaint should be upheld, we’ll speak to the business to make sure you receive fair compensation.

If you’re worried about anything you think might affect your case with us, please get in touch. We regularly update our online resource, so you can find out more how we’re sorting out PPI complaints.

spring update
behind the facts and figures

Every year around this time we publish our annual review – a report that covers a wide range of facts and figures about the complaints we’ve seen in the last year. The annual review gives us an opportunity to let you know about all kinds of things that the ombudsman can sort out – from PPI to payday lending. It also tells you how we resolve complaints, who brings them to us and lots more.

This annual review will be our fifteenth – and I’ve been thinking a lot about everything that’s happened since our very first annual review, back in 2001. From just over 30,000 complaints in our first year, to well over ten times that now, there’s no doubt the numbers of complaints we see are big.

But we never forget that behind all those facts and figures there are real people, like you, reading this email and wondering what difference all of this is going to make to their case. And for me, it’s vital that the people waiting for their PPI complaint to be resolved don’t feel that they’re nothing but a number – despite the huge challenges posed by the PPI complaints we see.

Well, the first thing to say is that we’re still seeing several thousand new cases a week, so the fact is some people will be waiting for an answer to their PPI complaints for some time to come. That means we’re still going to be relying on your patience for a while longer.

But we’re making real progress. In fact we sorted out more than 300,000 PPI complaints last year. And we’re going to keep making serious inroads into the often more complex cases that are still waiting for an answer – with plans to resolve 250,000 more PPI disputes by March 2016.

To help us do that we’ve also brought in new and quicker ways of getting to the heart of the issues – like making it easier for people to tell us what went wrong on our website, instead of having to post a complaint form. It might seem a bit late for that if your complaint is already with us, but it’s all about working more efficiently. Because the more efficiently we deal with the thousands of people who still contact us for the first time every week, the more resources we can devote to tackling our older complaints.

Of course, being fair doesn’t just mean looking at how old cases are. We also need to think about the best way to help consumers who are seriously ill or facing severe financial problems. So if you’ve got a complaint and you’re having problems, please let us know.

We don’t know what the next fifteen years will bring. But we do know that our commitment to dealing with each individual case in its own right will continue. And we’ll continue to do our best to resolve all the PPI complaints still with us as quickly as we can. In the meantime we’ll continue to keep you fully updated about how long that may take – and we’ll regularly tell people how we’re doing with the complaints we see.

new year update
being fair and making sure things feel fair

At the ombudsman, we know we’re only as good as the service we provide. We don’t make a product, something that you can hold in your hand. We’re here to give fair answers to help people sort out their PPI problems – so that they know they’ve been listened to and can move on.

As part of this, we regularly offer ‘backstage tours’ so our customers can meet us face-to-face and see what we’re doing – and it’s always great to hear their views. A few weeks ago, Stan, Marie-Claude, Olga and Robert came to visit us. Our adjudicators and ombudsmen really enjoyed hearing from them – and meeting some of the people behind the hundreds of thousands of complaints they sort out each year.

It quickly became clear that every person had their own unique story to tell. While we know only too well that to treat people fairly we need to understand what’s happened to them as individuals – this was put into sharp focus as we learnt about the challenges that one of our visitors was going through and how this might impact on their life.

So although it’s right that we balance up the needs of all our PPI customers – we’ve sorted out things for over 300,000 people this year, but a quarter million people still need our help – we want to hear from people when there are things happening to them, that mean we need to do things differently.

That’s why when we get in touch every few months to update people, we remind them that if they’re seriously ill or facing severe financial problems to let us know. We can then see what we should do to help – that’s what being fair is all about.

December 2014looking back and looking forward

Among all the mince pies and the last-minute present-buying, the end of the year is traditionally a time for looking back and taking stock. But it’s also about looking ahead – to new beginnings and new goals – and that’s as true here at the ombudsman service as anywhere else. Looking forward to 2015, we expect to see the amount of new cases start to level off. We’ll still have historically high numbers of people turning to us for help - but we’ll also have the opportunity to take a step back and look again at the service we provide and the way we provide it.

We’ve already made some changes that you might know about. Like extending our opening hours – so you can get hold of us anytime from 8am to 8pm during the week. You can now get in touch with us on Saturdays too. And we’re offering customers the chance to come in and see us with the backstage tour.

But we know from what you’ve told us that there’s still a lot more we can and will do. We know your time is important to you – so we’ll be working to make things quicker and more straightforward for all our customers. And, we’re making it easier for people to let us know when things have gone wrong. So from early next year, you won’t have to post a complaint form to us if you don’t want to – you’ll be able to fill it all out online and send to it us that way. And throughout 2015, we’ll be looking at other ways that we can give consumers and businesses the information they need – right from the start. All of this happens because you tell us it matters – so please keep talking to us, and keep telling us how we can do better.

Finally, we’ve put together some handy tips on twitter – looking at some of the problems that can crop up at this time of year. So remember, if your boiler packs up and you’re having trouble with the insurers, or your credit card provider won’t help with a faulty gift purchase, our adjudicators are on hand to help.

I’ll be back in touch in the New Year to let you know more about what’s happening here in PPI and across the ombudsman service.

October 2014giving people honest and fair answers

Back in May 2012, while London was gearing up for the Olympics, the ombudsman was expanding its new PPI area to help the thousands of people getting in touch with us about PPI. At the peak, we were getting around 12,000 new PPI complaints each week. Things have calmed down a bit since then. But we’re still seeing around 4,000 new PPI cases every week. And it’s still the issue that most people come to us for help with – with 65% of all complaints we receive being about PPI.

Since then, we’ve sorted out 700,000 complaints for people from across the UK. But there are still more than 300,000 needing an answer to their complaint. So we’re focusing on getting those answers to our customers as quickly as we can – while making sure that we’ve been fair. By April 2015 we expect that no one will have to wait more than 18 months to hear what we think about their complaint.

And we’ll continue working hard to bring this time down as we go on. But it’s more difficult than just “processing a claim”. We need to take to look at what’s happened to each individual. And sometimes working out exactly what went wrong can be trickier than it may seem. Like where people have been sold multiple PPI policies over several years. We’ve already identified more than 20,000 cases where the consumer’s complaint involves more than one PPI policy.

One of those people is Rebecca Wells from Nottingham. She asked us to take a look at a PPI policy she took out with a personal loan back in 2007. When we got all her paper work in, it turned out she’d actually had several loans that had been bundled together into the 2007 loan. She’d been sold PPI along with each of the previous loans too – and they were all linked. When we dug a bit deeper, it turned out that her circumstances had changed over the years which meant that some of the PPI she’d been sold was right for her at the time, but later policies weren’t suitable for her. So we needed to unpick exactly what had happened at each sale over the years.

Complaints like Rebecca’s take longer to look into, to make sure we’ve reached a fair outcome. But where things are less complicated, we’ll do our best to give people answers in a few months. No matter how complex a PPI case is, we’re committed to giving people honest and fair answers more quickly.

September 2014making a difference …

Our adjudicators take a first look at the hundreds of thousands of complaints we see and resolve the vast majority without needing an ombudsman’s formal decision. So this month, I’ve asked Maureen, one of our adjudicators, to tell you a bit about the work she does here.

"Hi, I’ve been at the ombudsman service for a little over a year now. I used to work for a housing association helping people on low incomes find homes. I really liked getting up every morning and heading off to a job where I knew I could make a difference in people’s lives. And I get to do the same at the ombudsman service. It’s all about being fair – to both sides.

For me, making a difference is more than just telling customers whether they’ve ‘won’ their case or not. A big part of what I do is helping people understand what’s happened and where they stand.

Some people have no idea what we do when they first get in touch – and why should they? Chances are they’ve just read our details at the bottom of a letter from their bank or another financial business. So that’s where I come in, letting people know how we can help and explaining that while we’re not consumer champions, we’ll always treat them fairly. And sometimes small businesses need my help too. If they’re not familiar with the ombudsman service. I can help them understand what we do.

I help customers cut through the myths surrounding PPI so they know what to expect down the line. People sometimes think they’re going to receive thousands of pounds if they’ve been sold PPI. Where we find that PPI has been mis-sold to a customer, the money they get will only put them back in the position they would have been in if they hadn’t been solditin the first place. So if PPI cost you a few hundred pounds, the money you get back will be the same – with interest to make sure you’ve not lost out.

I also let people know about things they can do to help themselves with the problems they’re having. When people tell us that they’re struggling, whether that’s financially or otherwise, we put them in touch with organisations that can also help.

I love picking up the phone and just hearing our customers’ stories in their own words. And being able to help a person get something sorted, makes it all worthwhile for me."

August 2014telling your own story …

We help thousands of people every week put PPI behind them and move on. People from all walks of life get in touch with the ombudsman – and every one of them has their own story to tell. So it’s important that we hear what happened to them – in their own words. Where we don’t get this information at the start, it can take longer to help people get their complaints sorted.

Sometimes it’s the small details a person might remember – finer points about their job at the time or perhaps a throw away comment from a sales adviser – that help us piece together the events and get a clear picture of what happened. And while I know it’s tempting to use template letters or standard wording, this often lacks the individual detail we need, to get to the heart of your story.

So whether you’re bringing a PPI complaint to the ombudsman by yourself, or you’ve asked a claims manager or friend to help you, it’s really important that we hear your story from you – as you remember it yourself.

July 2014making it matter …

Sometimes, it’s the little things we do that can have the biggest impact. Like getting businesses and customers talking, or giving people a quick steer when they need it. I wanted to tell you about a story I heard about us doing just that. Mr Lewis was pretty sure he’d had PPI on a loan he took out in the late 1990s. But when he got in touch with the business that gave him the loan, they said they’d no record of him – let alone any PPI policy.

So, when Mr Lewis gave us a quick call, we suggested he check whether he still had any paperwork from the time he took out the loan and also suggested that he made sure the business was looking for him under his old address too. Mr Lewis got back in touch to say that he’d found all his old car documents – including the loan agreement from 1999. He’d sent this information (along with details of his old address) to the business who looked into things for him there and then. He told us he was really pleased that he’d talked to us about getting this sorted himself.

With over 350,000 people still needing our help in PPI, we need to make sure we’re using our time in the best way. So, I wanted to let you know about some of the things we’re already doing to make sure we’re spending the right time on the right things.

we’re helping customers – like Mr Lewis – get information that could help them put things right – without us needing to step in formally. So we’ll be doing more with our website to help customers do that

we’re making sure we get straight to the point when we get in touch with you – asking only for the information we need

we’re weighing up that while some people want a detailed explanation of their complaint, many just want an answer. We’ve got a responsibility to make sure we spend the right time on each person’s complaint – no more and no less.

We know there’s still more we can do. And it’s only you and people like Mr Lewis who can really tell us what matters to our customers – so please let me know your thoughts.

June 2014more to PPI than meets the eye

Following on from Garry’s last email, I wanted to use this month’s update to let you know about some of the things we’re seeing across PPI.

I’ve been an ombudsman for seven years – the last three focusing on PPI. A lot has changed in that time, including the sorts of things people are worried about, and the complexity of the issues too. And, during the last year in particular, we’ve seen that PPI complaints are being increasingly harder fought. So why is this?

Well I think one reason might be because PPI is often talked about as if it’s all the same – and that it was always mis-sold. Given the media coverage and the texts we’ve probably all received at some point, it’s not surprising why many people might think this. But it often means people are left feeling surprised and disappointed if we don’t agree that they were mis-sold PPI.

The truth is that PPI was useful for some people, and it wasn’t mis-sold to them. We see many different types of PPI complaints and the percentage of complaints where the customer was mis-sold PPI ranges from 2% to 97% - depending on the business and the type of complaint involved. For example, cases where PPI was sold by smaller businesses, such as car dealerships. Unlike many of the policies sold by larger businesses alongside loans and credit cards, the policies sold by these smaller businesses are sometimes more flexible. This means we more often find they were suitable for a customer’s circumstances. Also where polices were sold alongside mortgages, we often find that the policies provided useful cover. Of course, the individual circumstances of each case are a key part in putting things right. After all, no two people and their circumstances are ever the same, so we should reflect that in our handling of cases.

Since my last email, we’ve now had our PPI Twitter day – it was great that so many people got involved. And it wasn’t just about the number of “tweets” coming in – we had five times as many people checking out @financialombuds on that day.

One of the “tweets” that stuck in my mind was from Andrew, who asked us about a complaint that he’d made through a claims manager. We looked into this and we were quickly able to let him know that the claims manager hadn’t actually passed on his complaint. We were able to help Andrew there and then – but we also picked this up with the claims manager in question.

As the comments on the day showed, PPI is not the only thing on people’s minds. They asked about a whole range of things, from problems with their pet insurance to fraud on their bank account. What came across loud and clear on the day was that some people just wanted a quick opinion on whether we thought what had happened to them was right.

We’ve been able to give people a quick steer on a range of PPI complaints for some time now. Our PPI ombudsmen looked in detail at over 70,000 cases, to find the patterns and trends in the complaints we see. And by using this insight and expertise up-front, we’ve been more able to guide our customers on what’s likely to happen in their complaint. This has been particularly important with PPI due to the length of time that some people are waiting.

Our ombudsmen have always been involved throughout our work in PPI – from sharing what they know with our adjudicators, to making sure claims managers and financial businesses are familiar with our approach. This means that, where possible, things can be sorted out early on – without us having to step in more formally. With this in mind, I’ve asked Richard Thompson, PPI ombudsman, to let you know about some of the things on his mind in future issues of PPI what’s happening.

In the meantime, if you want to find out a bit more about what the ombudsman’s seeing more generally, please take a look at the ombudsman’s year book.

April 2014“Twitter” day at the ombudsman …

Staying in touch and letting you know what’s happening in PPI has been one of the main aims of my monthly updates. And while this year alone we’ve be able to sort out 400,000 complaints for our PPI customers, we still have a large number of people who have complaints with us. Many of you have told us that you’d like to hear from us more often. So as well as sending more regular updates, we’re trying out a few other ways of letting people know what we’re doing.

Tomorrow we’ll be “tweeting” throughout the day about what we’re doing in PPI @financialombuds. We’ll be letting followers know about what’s coming through our helpline and replying to any “tweets” we get along the way.

In the afternoon, a couple of our senior managers - Tim Archer and Charlie Sweeney - will be talking about some of the things we’re doing across PPI. And if this is something that our customers find useful, we’ll take part in more online events in the future. If you have the chance tomorrow, why not join us online?

Of course, we realise that what works for one person, might not help another. So we’re also going to be out and about across the UK in the coming months, including events in Dagenham, Belfast and Glasgow – where people can meet us face-to-face. You can also check our website and Twitter page for details of all our up and coming events.

As well as sharing with you what we’re doing, we’re also keen to hear from the people who our work affects the most – you. And if you have any other thoughts or ideas about how we can do this better please get in touch!

March 2014 the people behind the numbers
I’ve talked about some pretty big numbers since I started my PPI updates. But, nothing brings home the importance of what we do more, than hearing the individual stories of the people who’ve come to us for help. So, this month, I’ve asked one of our customers if she’d share her story with you.

“I’m Mandy Usher - I’m 37 and work as a teaching assistant in a primary school in Leeds. A couple of years ago I needed a bit of extra cash to get us through the Christmas holidays and to buy my son some presents – nothing over the top or flashy, just a little something to make it special for him. I know they always tell you not to, but I took out a credit card to see us through. It took me a while, I paid off the credit card after a few years and to be honest I thought no more about it.

I’d heard about PPI on TV and had received texts about it too but, I didn’t think that these ads had anything to do with me. It wasn’t until my sister started talking about a PPI complaint she’d made, that I started to look into things a bit more. I remembered the assistant at the bank talking about some sort of insurance and I was told, at the time, it was something I had to have. I had a quick look online and saw that loads of people had been told exactly the same thing about PPI, even though this turned out not to be quite right. I asked my

bank about it, because I knew it had been something that I’d paid extra for, but they said they hadn’t done anything wrong. After a bit more reading online, this didn’t add up to me, so I contacted the financial ombudsman.

It took much longer than I’d expected. But, when the adjudicator got to my case and looked into things, they told the bank that they should pay up. Great, I thought, but unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it. The bank didn’t agree at first and the ombudsman had to have a few more conversations with them before they could tell me that I would be getting my money back. It couldn’t have come at a better time, my son needed a new school uniform and money was a bit tight. I know not everyone wins their complaint with the ombudsman – my sister didn’t get a pay out on her one. But, we both were happy to have someone look into it properly for us – although it would be great if they could have dealt with us a bit quicker.”

The reason the ombudsman service exists is to help sort out people’s problems like Mandy Usher’s and her sister. And, for me, the key to us doing that well is never forgetting the people behind the numbers. So, while we‘ll continue to make things quicker where we can, we can’t forget the impact we have on people’s lives along the way.

February 2014you said, we did …

I’m always interested to read the letters and emails you send me about your experiences – both the good and the not so good. And what you say helps us with many of the changes we make at the ombudsman. So, this month, I wanted to share a few of the changes we’ve made already and some of the things we’ll be bringing in based on what you’ve told us.

you said that you wanted to hear from us more regularly about the progress we’re making on your complaint …
This spring, we’re planning to send a new style of update to around 10,000 PPI customers to get their thoughts on it. And while it won’t go into specifics about their individual complaint, it will hopefully answer some of the questions that many people have told us they have. But, of course, an update that goes to thousands of people will still be fairly general in nature. And I know that can be frustrating for many of you. It’s a tricky one to get right.

We have to decide how best to use the people we’ve got. We could spend time sending out detailed individual updates - or we can continue to focus our efforts on getting more PPI complaints sorted out. I think the latter is the right thing to do – and if the new style of update is helpful, we’ll share it with all our PPI customers in the near future.

We’re also going to update many of our PPI customers more regularly – every three months, rather than at the six month intervals we do at the moment. And, again, if this is something that our customers find worthwhile, we’ll start doing this for everyone.

you said that we could be clearer in the language we use in some of our letters and let you know more about what to expect upfront We’ve been reviewing the letters and emails we send to our PPI customers – and have improved many of them already, to make them clearer and easier to understand. The feedback we’ve received so far has been very positive – and we know that far fewer people have had to get in touch with us to clarify things. This in turn has allowed us to use our time to sort out more complaints.

you said that the welcome message on our phone line is a bit long to listen to – especially if you already know the information it contains …
We’ll make this message shorter – but will keep the key information you and people contacting us for the first time need.

There is a lot more to look forward to and we’ll keep you in the loop around the changes we continue to make. And in the meantime, let us know your ideas about how we can make things even better – we’ll listen to what you have to say.

January 2014PPI - the year ahead ...

Do you remember what you were doing five years ago? Back in 2009, America’s first black president had just taken office, Slumdog Millionaire was just about to sweep the board at the Oscars and the ombudsman had received around 30,000 complaints about PPI that year.

Since then a lot has changed. There aren’t many people left in the UK who haven’t heard about PPI – and we’ve received more than 30,000 PPI complaints in some months alone. But, the good news is that we’re starting to see early signs that the numbers of PPI complaints are starting to slow down. At its peak 12,000 people were bringing their PPI cases to the ombudsman each week, but more recently it’s been around half that number.

This means our 2,000 specialist PPI adjudicators can increasingly devote the majority of their time to sorting out the complaints that are with us. Wherever possible, we’ll continue to give our customers an indication of the likely outcome of their PPI complaint when they first get in touch with us. And in 80% of the complaints we see, the final outcome on the case is in line with that early indication.

We expect to sort out more than 300,000 PPI complaints again this year – and while some cases are taking longer to sort out, we’re now resolving around a quarter of PPI complaints within three months.

While our main focus remains sorting out the complaints that are with us, we recognise that we also need to keep pace with a changing world. People are increasing using technology to manage their day-to-day lives, whether banking on-line, watching the latest blockbuster or keeping in touch with friends and family. And at the ombudsman we’re looking at new ways that we can interact with our customers too – from instant chats to online complaint forms. You can already join us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

We hope you’ll get involved with some of our online events coming up later this year. But in the meantime, don’t forget you can still join us on our backstage tour if you want to come and share your experience of bringing a PPI complaint to the ombudsman. If you fancy taking part, drop us an email at meettheombudsman@financial-ombudsman.org.uk

December 2013backstage tour – the next steps …

Since I was last in touch, we’ve welcomed a group of consumers with PPI complaints on our very first “backstage tour” of the ombudsman. It was a great day – and we enjoyed hearing their views and experiences of our service.

Much of what they told us was positive – but they also gave us some honest feedback on where we can still do things better. It was a really good exchange of ideas – and we’d definitely like to run more tours in the New Year.

During the tour, we talked about the reality and challenges of dealing with over a million PPI cases. That it can be all too easy for someone to feel like just another number – particularly, when updates are fairly general in nature. While people were complimentary about our adjudicators, some felt that we could have been more up-front from the beginning with them in terms of how long it would take us to deal with their complaint.

While we always try be as open as possible about how long it will take us to deal with a complaint, it can sometimes be difficult to be precise. There are a lot of factors that can impact on how quickly a case can be resolved. But, following the feedback from our visitors, we’ll be looking at how we can improve the way we keep our customers updated while they are waiting.

We also talked about some of the ways we’ve been sorting out complaints in 2013 and the real benefits we’ve seen in approaching PPI complaints strategically. This year, we deliberately focused on where we could resolve the greatest number of PPI complaints for our customers. By initially turning our attention to complaints about some of the largest banks and credit card providers, we’ve been able to deal with tens-of-thousands of complaints at any one time. This has meant more than 350,000 PPI customers getting an answer to their complaint – a record for the ombudsman service and 60% more PPI cases than last year.

But, we’re keen to continue building a better service for our customers. So, if you’ve brought a complaint about PPI to the ombudsman, and want to share your thoughts and experiences with us, please join us on a tour. You can drop us an email at meettheombudsman@financial-ombudsman.org.uk – and we’ll be in touch with the next tour dates in the new year. And if you need any more encouragement to get involved, here’s what one of our customers, Vera from Chelmsford, had to say about the tour:

“I do hope that other customers will take up the offer to 'tour' and they will see for themselves, that it’s a great organisation that is customer focussed, and the fact that everyone cares makes such a difference.”

October/November 2013sharing your thoughts

Last month, I asked you to get in touch if you wanted to join us for a “backstage tour” of the ombudsman – and I’d like to thank everyone who got back to me. We’ll be letting you know, through PPI what’s happening, how it went and the main things that came through from the day. But this is just one of the many ways we’re keeping in touch with our customers.

More than a million people have now asked for the ombudsman’s help with their PPI complaint. So listening to our customers – both consumers and financial businesses – and hearing what they’re saying has never been more important.

It’s one of the ways we cut through complaints and get to the heart of what’s really happened – and it’s helped us sort out over 200,000 complaints about PPI in the last six months alone. And it’s also why most of the complaints we deal with don’t need a legally binding decision from an ombudsman to sort things out.

Of course, there is more we would like to do to continue improving the service we provide for our customers. But given the number of people who need our help with their PPI complaint, we’re not going to be able to deal with cases as quickly as we would like. And our focus can’t just be on resolving complaints quickly – it’s also about reaching the right outcome and being fair to both sides.

With so many people now using the ombudsman, it’s vital that we learn from what they are telling us, so we can build an even better service for the future. That’s why I’m so pleased that people are willing to come in and share their thoughts about what they want the ombudsman of the future to feel like for them.

September 2013an invitation

This is an update with a difference – it’s not about PPI. It’s an invitation to join us for a “backstage tour” of the ombudsman service.

Come and see us in action and talk to us about the work we do. This isn’t about discussing your own (or anyone else's) particular complaint – and we won’t be talking about individual cases. Instead this is your chance to find out more about how we help people, put faces to names – and for you to share thoughts with us on your own wider experiences of how to get problems sorted.

At the moment of course, two-thirds of what we’re doing at the ombudsman is about PPI. But, in the other work we do – from sorting out problems with car insurance to credit cards – we’re already seeing big shifts in what people are complaining about and how they go about it.

This is why we’re particularly interested in talking to people like you, who already have first-hand experience of sorting things out with the ombudsman. In thinking about how we put problems right in the future, we want to learn and build on those experiencing our service today. So if you want meet the ombudsman, get in touch!

August 2013

This is my fifth monthly update to share with you the work we've been doing – and the progress we’re making and the impact it’s having. Commentators say that PPI is now the UK's biggest ever mis-selling scandal, with around £20 billion set aside by banks and other institutions to compensate customers for mis-sold policies. We've seen more complaints about PPI than about any other issue in the ombudsman's history.

We've been working hard to resolve the large numbers of cases which have come to us - and we're now seeing the results. In the past three months alone, we’ve sorted out over 115,000 PPI complaints for our customers – a record for the ombudsman service. That's more PPI complaints resolved in three months than in the whole of last year.

It's good news that we've been able to sort out so many complaints, but with over 9,000 people bringing new PPI complaints to us each week there’s still a lot more to do. To help us do this, we’re constantly looking at ways to improve our service - as well as recruiting 1,000 new people this year just to focus on PPI.

We're continuing to attract high-calibre people, who share our values and want to work for an organisation that plays a crucial role in putting wrongs right. We've made a great start in recruiting the additional staff we need - but finding the right people to work for us is only part of the challenge. It then takes time to develop and train them to do the specialist work of the ombudsman. But we know this is something worth investing in. So we can provide an even better service to our customers in the years ahead.

July 2013

It’s been hard to avoid the critical press surrounding the financial services sector recently. Commentators point to the continuing loss of public trust in financial institutions – and the services they provide. So it’s perhaps no surprise that we continue to see thousands of people turning to the ombudsman service for help. Last week nearly 10,000 people asked us to independently review their complaint – and we don’t expect this to slow down any time so on.

The ombudsman service was set up by Parliament to be independent and impartial - with powers like a court of law but more informal and accessible. So that people have somewhere to go when they think a financial business has got things wrong and they have lost out as a result.

Being independent means we look into both sides of each story. For us, it’s about making fair decisions to get to the truth. Sometimes that means asking searching questions – of both businesses and consumers – to get to the right outcome. And currently in over half of the PPI complaints we sort out, we reach an outcome that’s different to the one that the financial business came to.

An independent service like the ombudsman needs people who are willing to ask questions, challenge assumptions and reach a fair outcome based on the facts of each case. There are no shortcuts to doing this. Our adjudicators and ombudsmen treat each case separately, reviewing it on its own individual merits. So to deal with the record number of PPI complaints that we’re seeing, we are recruiting nearly 1,000 extra people this year to help us do just that.

It’s what every complaint deserves – and it’s what we'll continue to do.

June 2013

Did you listen to You and Yours on Radio 4 last week? If so, you will know that the BBC came in to find out first-hand how we’re dealing with PPI complaints. They got to meet everyone from our front-line staff on the phones to our ombudsmen colleagues making decisions about complaints - and it was a great way to share the work that we do.

The programme highlighted the scale of the challenge we're dealing with in PPI – last year around two million people contacted us for help – almost double the year before! But it also showed how we look beyond the numbers, treating each case individually, and why this is so important.

When people talk about PPI it’s really easy to assume that all complaints are the same. Sometimes people hope that working out whether or not a policy was mis-sold is a simple “yes-no” question. But it’s a bit more complicated than that.

PPI was sold by hundreds of different businesses, alongside thousands of different products, to millions of different customers. It could be about a range of matters from PPI on a car-financing deal to a stand-alone policy connected to a credit card. Each complaint we receive is as unique as the person making it – and, as the programme showed, we never lose sight of that.

One of the things we shared with the BBC was our take on cases – that, at their heart, complaints about PPI are about a customer saying “I don’t think this was right for me”. When we look at the facts, we find that they’re different in every case. Investigating cases properly can take time, because we don't make assumptions.

Ultimately, PPI is an ongoing challenge, and one that will take time to resolve. But, as You and Yours showed, it’s one that we’re committed to tackling in the right way – focusing on the facts in each individual case. You can trust us to get the job done.

May 2013

Does anyone in the UK not know about PPI? With over 50 million policies sold, many sold to people who didn’t need it or couldn’t use it, and over £15 billion set aside by the banks for compensation, it’s not surprising that PPI has been the single most complained about subject ever.

So far my team at the ombudsman have received a staggering 600,000 complaints to resolve. And, disappointingly, we’re still receiving new complaints at the rate of around 2,000 a day.

But the good news is that we’re making progress. After a major recruitment process, 40 new casehandlers are now joining us every week, and we’re training them extensively to handle PPI complaints. But working through every case to a resolution will take time - and unfortunately for most people, that wait may be a year or more.
Given the huge numbers of complaints about PPI we’ve seen, we know a huge amount about the subject! We can spot cases where a bank has made the same mistake again and again, and can see where if they get their approach right, thousands of people can get their case resolved sooner.

We’re therefore putting a lot of effort into working with the major businesses, and claims handlers, to share this insight and to see if we can get consumers an outcome to their complaint as quickly as we can. I’m delighted that, just last week, as a result of this innovative and strategic work, over 10,000 consumers received an offer from their bank.

It’s going to take us a long time to resolve the hundreds of thousands of complaints we’ve got with us - but we’re making great progress on all fronts.

April 2013

At the start of a financial year, it’s always good to look back at the year we’ve had – and to the challenges ahead. With PPI remaining the mean area of complaints we’re handing at the Ombudsman Service, I thought it would a good time to let you know what’s happening.

the big number: 31,859
You can’t turn on the television at the moment without seeing an advert about making a "PPI claim". So you won’t be surprised to know that last year was our busiest ever for PPI complaints - we were twice as busy as we were in 2011. And we’re continuing to see record numbers of new complaints.

A lot of cases means a lot of correspondence. For example, last week we dealt with 31,859 separate pieces of correspondence – both emails and letters. We receive huge numbers of messages from consumers and businesses, and one of our challenges is successfully dealing with all of these while at the same time investigating and resolving the actual complaints.

what we’re doing about it
In the past year we’ve increased our number of PPI adjudicators from just over 100 to over 1,000. And in the next year we’re planning on recruiting and training 1,000 more people because we know how important it is that we deal with each enquiry properly - whether it’s setting up a new complaint or reviewing further information you’ve sent to us.

We’re working as fast as we can to resolve PPI complaints, and hope to provide consumers with resolutions as soon as possible. But we know that resolving all of the complaints will be a long term project which may take a couple of years – even once we have recruited and fully trained up all our new staff.

what to do if you’ve contacted us recently
Our teams are working hard so that we can get back to your enquiry as soon as we can. But on some occasions it may take longer than we would like – so we really appreciate your continued patience and understanding.

In the meantime you can check out our website for more news, updates and information. I’ll also be sending you some further email updates from time to time to keep you up to speed with our progress and news. There are a lot of numbers involved in PPI – but together, we will work them out.